


tread softly

by corbaccio



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anal Sex, Fluff, M/M, Spooning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 07:27:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3200606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corbaccio/pseuds/corbaccio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's late at night, or early morning maybe. The tent is cast in an even darkness, and he's dimly aware of the nightsounds seeping through the canvas. All his other senses are overwhelmed by Armin: his weight pressing into the crook of Eren's elbow, the subtle in-out of his breathing. The smooth, warm swathe of his bare back pressing against Eren's stomach where his cotton sleep shirt has ridden up. He smells reedy, of river water and crushed grass; beneath that, of sweat and the campfire. Earlier, its shimmering heat had lifted the fine hairs from Armin's forehead as he read maps by its light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tread softly

**Author's Note:**

> or: 4 times eren and armin spoon, and one time they fork. this was originally written for an snkkink prompt that asked for eremin spooning (or spooning sex), but i lost the link, and this ended up being very much an indulgent headcanon-y thing anyway. please enjoy!

**i.**

There's a little light coming under the door. Just enough that Eren can make out a pale head of hair in the formless dark. It's silent but for Armin's breathing, soft and even, and the muffled sounds of his parents in another room.

Usually, Eren loved staying over at Armin's house. Once it was bedtime, and the door had been shut, and the five minute grace period had passed, Armin would stand from his pallet on the floor and dip under the sheets next to Eren. His hands and feet were always cold. Armin always laughed when he said so, and pressed his icy fingertips against Eren’s neck. They would read his grandpa's book, and catch moths attracted by the faint light of the candle, and watch the stars through the open window while Armin reeled them off by name.

Eren chews at the inside of his cheek. The five minutes have long gone, and his gut is in a tight little knot. It had been a stupid argument. Really, you could hardly even call it an argument at all—just _stupid._

Armin had told him it was old, old like his grandpa's book, something from before and beyond the walls, this game of kings and soldiers. The pieces he'd pressed into Eren's hot palm were cool to the touch, smooth and pleasing. He had liked the look of them, and liked the look on Armin's face, too, when he told him so. It wasn't quite the same one Armin had when he talked about the ocean, but it was close enough that Eren's stomach had done the same happy little jump at the sight of it.

The excitement had been short-lived.

“Why does everything have to move in a particular way?” Eren had groused, because again Armin had had to correct his movement of a knight (a crude likeness of a horse's head). “Soldiers don't fight other soldiers, anyway.”

“Think of it like... like _this_ ,” Armin had said. He'd made a right angle with his thumb and forefinger, and traced the shape onto the board. Staring at the checkered black-and-white for so long was beginning to make Eren feel dizzy. “Then it's easier to remember, right?” 

Eren's patience had already been wearing thin at that point. Not at Armin, but at this game he was having such trouble understanding, so unlike the easiness of the outside world. The little crease that had come into being between Armin's eyebrows was what made him say it.

“You don't need to be good at some, some game for the scouts,” Eren had said, with the kind of childish cruelty that shocked even himself. He'd regretted it instantly. The wounded look on Armin's face had put his insides in knots, and the shame persisted even after it was gone. 

They've never fought before. Not seriously, and now Eren doesn't know what to do about it. He wishes Armin would get angry, sometimes, because he never seems to. Only ever at himself. Eren's had to apologise to him before, mainly for things like running on ahead too fast, or holding Armin's hand too tight, or—and this one Eren has never understood—helping him when he fell over and scraped his knee. Not that Armin had ever asked for it, only Eren knew by the miserable down-turn of his mouth that he was hurting, and saying sorry seemed to fix most problems before they could take shape.

But this time, it sticks there. A lump in his throat. _Sorry._ It's too quiet, and Eren's breathing too loud, and his heart is beating somewhere in between his ears. He flips the pillow, turns over to face the wall, but the cool side of the cotton isn't helping the miserable prickling heat that's keeping him awake. A familiar pressure is building behind his eyes. Eren swallows hard, setting his jaw against the coming tears. 

His mom once told him that actions speak louder than words. Actions, Eren's good at those. Words have always been more Armin's strength. 

Eren kicks off the covers and swings his legs over the side of the bed. The hard edge of the frame bites into the back of his thighs as he pushes himself upright. He stomps over to the pallet. Armin doesn't turn over. He crouches and lifts the blanket. Armin doesn't turn over, though he starts a little. It's only when Eren shuffles in next to him and wraps his arms around Armin's skinny chest that he gets a proper response. Armin squeaks and cranes to look at him, blinking once, twice, huge eyes owlish in the dark. 

“E-Eren?” A whisper.

The pallet's bedding is itchy and thin, and by comparison Armin is soft. As the moments pass, he goes from tense to yielding, the flesh of his inner elbow giving under Eren's nails. He nuzzles the back of Armin's neck, taking in a breath of him. This close it's almost like tasting: the musk of the sheets, Armin's sweetness, the clean scent of his flannel pyjamas. 

“Goodnight,” Eren mumbles, nearly forceful. The shame must still be roiling in him, because there's heat rushing to his cheeks again. He hides his face in the soft junction of Armin's shoulder, near enough to feel bones beneath the skin, working as he breathed. Like this, Armin can't see how red he's gone, so Eren figures it's okay. 

Cold, bare toes nudge at his shin, as though in answer. “... Alright,” Armin says, and softer still, “goodnight, Eren.”

 

**ii.**

Today the past has been coming at him by turns. The blow-out with Jean, the worst they've had in ages; the incidental mention of the outside world; seeing Hannes for the first time in five years, the same but for the lack of something sour on his breath. 

Maybe that's what prompted this.

The nightmare's not what wakes him. Instead, it's the pressure against his chest that's incompatible with the nightmare's reality—his father's fist closing tight around his arm, the image of his mother's broken shape against the pale sky, teeth as large as a headstone, cleaving—and Eren wakes with a violent start. It's like being submerged in ice water, all confusion before the world falls back into place. The dream, slithering away, like a fish in a riverbed he's never quick enough to catch.

Resurfacing is almost as bad as the nightmare itself. His face is wet with tears, greased with sweat, the pillow sticking to his cheek as he lifts his head. The living darkness of the barracks, a row of beds laid out before him. Eren tries to reorient himself. _The dorm. My bed. No titans._

The pressure that had been peculiar before is obvious now. A pair of arms around his chest, hands folded above his sternum. He doesn't have to look to know who it is. 

“Armin?” Eren says. It catches in his dry throat.

There's a mumble of confirmation, then the rustle of the covers. It's all magnified tenfold with the dark. A yawn stirs the hairs at the nape of his neck to rise.

“Are you okay?” Armin asks. 

His voice is hoarse still with sleep, and guilt twinges in Eren's stomach. He must have woken him.

“Yeah. It was just,” he starts and stops. Even now he hates saying it, and Armin knows he does. “I think it was seeing Hannes today.”

Another murmur. Armin's knees nudge just short of the crook of Eren's own, even as he edges closer, the inches between them not yet bridged. The warm weight of his arm slung over Eren's side is welcome, just heavy enough to anchor him in the real world before his mind spins off again in its own direction. Still, the panic of the dream has wedged a hard lump between his ribs. Armin's hands flatten over his chest, and Eren wonders whether he can feel the mad hammering of his heart there.

Armin swallows hard. Eren feels his intake of breath, deep, steadying. “You know, today,” Armin says, this time lucid, “about what you said to Jean…”

He must notice Eren's tensing because there's a pause, and then the audible click of teeth coming together. From the other end of the room, Eren can hear someone snoring. He closes his eyes. Sounds like Reiner.

Armin takes another fortifying breath.

“Do you remember when we were kids,” he says, “and we used to look at my grandpa's book? We'd hide the lamp under the covers but your mom would catch us anyway.”

Eren's heart squeezes in his chest. At the mention of his mother, at the book and the dream he'd been trying so hard to avoid. At the memory, which in spite of its distance is startlingly clear: the butter-yellow light, trapped in the pocket of the covers, used to pick out the freckles sunned into being on Armin's nose. 

Eren’s throat tightens. “... Yeah,” he says, hoarser than he means.

“You used to like those lights that appear in the sky in some places. All different colours.” There's a little breathless awe in Armin's voice, the kind that Eren hasn't heard in a long time. “It had a special name.”

Armin pauses again. Deliberate this time, hesitation weighted with expectation. Eren knows the name, and there's no question in his mind that Armin does, too. Even in Eren's desperate attempts to make him forget, Armin must know and remember mostly everything. But this quiet he's set between them might as well be a physical thing—Armin's hand outstretched to be helped up from the ground—and worse, how rare it is for him to allow this sort of naked vulnerability.

He remembers how odd it had felt in his mouth, at first. Like it belonged to a language not their own. He remembers Armin coaching him how to work his tongue and teeth to say it proper, not in a patronising way, but just as Mikasa taught him how to say her mother's name. The need to share something fundamental, something that was a part of yourself. 

Eren wishes he could turn, look at Armin's face, but the silence is paralysing. 

Eren swallows and says, “Aurora.”

Armin starts. And then, there's a quiet noise of relief, nearly a laugh or a sob, and his arms tighten around Eren's chest. “Yeah,” he says, with a terrible cracking note of hope in his voice. Eren's heart breaks with it. “Yes. You remembered.”

_Of course_ , Eren wants to say. _How could I possibly forget._

They're so close that even facing away Eren can catch the scent of him. He was setting up stables, and in spite of his shower the smell of sweet green hay lingers. Maybe, by tomorrow morning, Armin will have forgotten. Eren has dreamt of Armin's weight at his back before, his voice at the soft skin behind his ear in the cool blue hours of morning. This could so easily be another figment of his imagination. 

Eren listens to the even sound of Armin's breathing. He threads it into his thoughts, sleeps deep and blank. 

 

**iii.**

The barracks are empty and the beds still in a state of disarray when Armin makes his way to them. He manages to remove his boots before collapsing, but the harness is beyond his exhausted coordination and it's not worth the risk of fatiguing the leather. Instead, he snaps the top buckles to loosen its grip and drags himself to the corner bunk. 

It's the first moment of peace he's had since they made it back within the walls, after stabling the horses, carting the injured down to the infirmary, being picked over for wounds himself. There's going to be talks later, that much Armin knows. About Eren, what he can do; about Reiner and Bertholdt and Ymir; about Krista—or, rather, _Historia._ But right now they're in the eye of the storm, and the worst of it has caught up with the Commander. 

Too much has happened in too short a time. The inertia of it has Armin's mind spinning, and he can't keep himself from dwelling on each success and failure in turn. Eren's rescue dwarfs the worst of them, but the rush of raw fury to Bertholdt's face, like steam escaping to the open sky, is a wound that reaches deep. The regret isn't unexpected so much as _odd_. In the wake of it, some part of Armin is grateful that Bertholdt was so quick to draw his blades, and not just because it left him open to attack. There's no question in Armin's mind that he did the right thing. 

And yet.

Armin cards both hands through his hair, then grimaces. It feels lank, unwashed, though the very idea of getting up to shower is a draining one. There might not be a chance to later if things continue in this manic way. Armin's so caught up in debating with himself that he doesn't notice the approaching footsteps.

“... Hey.”

The exhaustion must be getting to him, because black spots his vision when Armin lifts his head—but there, looking like he'd collapse without his hand braced to the frame of the bunk above, is Eren. 

"Hey," Armin says. Then, even though it's a question Eren must have answered a hundred times over by now, "How do you feel?"

Mikasa, albeit bed-ridden herself, had tried to get Eren to go the infirmary too. He had barely eaten in days, barely slept. Eren's wounds had healed but there wasn't any hiding how pale he was. Even now, the bruise-bold marks beneath his eyes are bright against his sallow face. As is always the case with Eren, he wears his emotions on him like a second skin. Armin wonders if he looks as awful. Hell, probably worse.

Eren turns, sighs. The bedsprings creak as he flops beside Armin, but it's the sound of Eren's hard swallow that really commands his attention. Armin can see the muscles in his jaw tick, the way they always do when he's upset or angry, the awkward flitting of his gaze from Armin's face to his own feet. There's so much he can read, here, like he's got Eren mapped on to his skin: he wants to say something but can't, or doesn't know how to. Armin is almost afraid to hear it.

“How's Jean?” Eren says at last. Quiet, halting, as if it's not what he means to say at all. But this is a question that Armin can answer, at least.

“He's fine.” A nervous smile pulls at the corner of Armin's mouth, though the mention of Jean's name sends a cold flood of remembered fear through him. The deadweight full against Armin's chest, how awkward his blade had felt in his hand, catching Eren's eye from across the grassland. Armin hears the weighted break in his own voice and starts again. “A medic checked him over. It's just a mild concussion. Said he was lucky.”

“That's good,” Eren says. 

His voice is rough, and Armin watches the bob of his throat as he swallows again. His gaze drops down, first at the spotting of blood on Eren's shredded cuff, and then at the fine hairs of his forearm. The staticky brush of them against Armin's own. They've sat closer before—literally hip to hip, sometimes, when space in the mess hall was tight—but this time a nervous energy squirrels in Armin's joints. He launches himself from the bed. 

“Here—you're—let me get you something to drink,” he says. 

There's a pitcher of water on the side table. The film of dust on its surface parts and swirls as Armin pours a glass, managing by some miracle not to spill any. He holds it out between them. The water ripples with his shaking hand, but it's only when Eren's fingers close around his wrist that Armin startles. 

Water slops out of the glass. Some spills on to his socked foot, but Armin hardly notices. There's a bead of sweat running from the shell-curve of Eren's ear, tracking a clean line down his throat. Lower still, at which point Armin has to look away. He can feel the colour coming into his face. Armin's only just learning what this strange, molten thing that pools in his stomach is when he thinks about Eren, and it frightens him. Frightens him to acknowledge it, more so to give it a name. In the face of everything that's happened, it's absurd to even pay it any mind. 

Eren's fingers are hot, hot like a child's, and clammy to the touch in a way that isn't just the side effect of shifting. It's all so achingly familiar. Back in Shiganshina, Eren taught him how to sound music through a blade of grass: he'd arranged Armin's thumbs around it and blew between them till a rasping whistle cut through the air. Eren's breath had been warm and damp in the pocket of Armin's palms. Mr. Hannes had laughed at them.

With deliberate gentleness, Eren guides his hand, and the glass, back to the side table. He sets it down with a startling _clink_.

Armin clears his throat, which does nothing to ease the tightness there.

“Come here,” Eren says. His voice is rougher this time. It makes a shiver go down Armin's spine. 

There's space enough for Armin to lie parallel when Eren settles back, and though the closeness of death still sits in his stomach like a stone, he does feel safer. Eren's arms come around him, bundling Armin in the blankets.

“You'll be cold,” Armin says, shifting as much as he can in the trap of the sheets. The more damning thought—of how he wants to feel Eren's hands on him, skin on cloth on skin on cloth—he keeps to himself.

“It's only for a little while,” Eren whispers. 

There's no argument to be had here. Armin lets his body relax, and there's just enough give that he can reach for Eren's hand, two fingers pressing against the skin of his inner wrist. The way he lingers there is transparent in a way that Armin rarely allows himself to be. An assurance, the search for a pulsebeat in the warm threading of Eren's veins. It scares Armin, sometimes—that Eren is this pole star him and Mikasa will forever be trying to orient themselves around, and one day he'll disappear from view. But there, he finds it, the hot flutter of blood. A reminder that Eren's safe. In their arms, not the Military Police's or Annie's, not Reiner's or Bertholdt's. 

Armin stares at their hands folded together. His eyelids feel heavy. There's dirt worn into the creases of his palms where Eren's are clean, and the harness straps are cutting into his thighs, and his face still smarts from the Colossal Titan's searing heat. The memory of Annie in the enclosed space of Stohess' alleyway comes unbidden: the scent of her, like a blown out candle, burnt rubber, some heat not yet diffused rolling off her skin. Vaguely, Armin had thought, like Eren. 

Right now, Eren smells like leather and horse. Human smells, like skin and sweat and tears and blood. These things have their own holiness, Armin knows. Their own grace. Being human is not so easy as being born one.

_What else do I need to throw away? Along with my life, what else?_

The press of Eren's arm brings him down into the calling darkness. When Armin dreams, he dreams of fire that lets out steam instead of smoke, white volutes crossed with coloured flares. Green, red, black. The sky lit up with them. 

 

**iv.**

It's not often that Armin has trouble sleeping. The sheer exhaustion of training is as effective as any sleeping draught, and once the mechanism of his mind has run its nervous laps about whatever he's internalised, it lets itself go quiet after dark. But such is not the case today. 

It's in part the consequence of their current circumstances. The Captain has them _cleaning_ more than training these days, their presence already conspicuous in the abandoned stronghold without running drills. This place, with its ancient and deep-set foundation, is no worse than the barracks in keeping heat, but there's so few of them that any generated is promptly lost. The quiet cold is so dense that it might as well be a material thing. Worse, it allows Armin to think and think and think.

Tomorrow, they will give Eren and Historia over to the Reeves' Corporation. Armin had watched as they slid the tiny razors beneath Eren's tongue, behind his teeth, in the grooves of his toes and fingers, so he knew how not to cut himself during the execution of the plan—or how to cut himself, if the need arose. A rehearsal of a kidnapping that's meant to fail. It's almost funny, except that it could go wrong in so many ways. The idea of losing Eren so soon after getting him back from the hands of the enemy fills Armin's stomach with ice.

He slits his eyes open. The room's dark, but not so much that he can't make out the silhouette in the bed across from him. Even Eren's sleeping shape is familiar. It makes Armin ache again, the selfsame burn that hasn't lessened with time nor his attempts to suppress it. 

Sleep is no closer than it was hours ago, and soon it'll be Armin's turn to take watch. It's part-resignation and part-frustration that has him push the covers down. The floorboards are frigid beneath his bare feet as he pads across the room, but Armin stops short of the bed. His knees bump the frame. Eren's breathing is too shallow and his body too still to be truly asleep. Maybe he's suffering this same dread. Armin lowers himself to the side of the mattress, gently enough that it doesn't creak. Gently enough that he catches the minute hitch in Eren's sigh. 

“I'm sorry,” Armin says, though he doesn't know why. He just is. So much of what's happened—he's sorry for all of it.

Eren nods. “I know,” he says, weary, sad, but facing away still. Armin's stomach twists. “... Me too.”

The answer is an invitation that even now Armin can decipher. The bed's not made to fit two but it hardly matters. Armin untucks the blanket to slip beneath, and there's an awkward blind navigation before they notch together. Armin finds Eren warm, unbelievably so with the encroaching chill. Sometimes, in the landfill, wedged between Eren and Mikasa both, the difference in temperature between them had been alarming. On more than one occasion Armin had thought Eren sick with fever. 

That remembered ghost of a touch is nothing like this, though. When did it change? Eren, as solid and real and warm as ever, but Armin's awareness of that physicality is what's startling. 

“What are we going to do?” Eren whispers after a time. “What are we supposed to do?”

The cold fear is obvious in Eren's voice. Really, the truth is that Armin doesn't know. The shape of their victory is changing, and while Armin's no stranger to the human enemy ( _soldiers don't fight other soldiers_ ), the satisfaction of being right all these years is neatly undercut by the odds against them. This isn't something they can fight or run from. 

He unfolds his hands from Eren's middle. One drifts up, finding Eren's, a lax fist that accepts Armin's touch as he laces their fingers together. The top of Eren's palm is rough, soft flesh giving way to the firm knot of a callus. In places Eren's skin is as soft as it was when they were children, unmarred by scars and bruises both. Titan regeneration. 

Once Armin read that, in the death and regeneration of cells, even the human body replaces itself entirely in the span of seven years. At the time it had been an assurance: maybe his body wouldn't always be so weak, so small, so tired and useless. Now, with Eren's hand in his, it's hard to imagine. Surely these are the same hands that split their knuckles picking Armin's fights, and taught him how to whistle grass, and how to grab nettles so they didn't sting. The same hands that, when Armin got stung anyway in his trepidation, rubbed the angry welts. 

Armin swallows. He thumbs Eren's knuckles, once, twice. The question hangs in the air.

“I don't know,” he admits, “but we'll manage. We always do.”

Armin cringes. Forced, false-sounding determination. He's never been so good with words of encouragement, especially not ones he hardly believes in himself. When there's no response, he cups his hand to Eren's opposite cheek. The touch is more intimate that he thought it'd be, and Armin regrets it instantly.

But Eren, oblivious, angles to meet his stare. The neat symmetry of his face is reassuring in its familiarity, especially this close. The same as it was five, ten years ago though sharper now, more a man's face than a boy's. His sparse eyebrows, the even slope of his nose. His skin some shades darker than Armin's own, even more obvious with his hand pressed flat to Eren's cheek. Armin feels himself wanting. A deep, certain, terrible wanting, the kind that ate holes in him. 

_Let go_ , he tells himself. _Just let go._ And he is—at least, he's about to let go, when he feels it. 

A softer touch. Barely a touch at all. It makes his insides ripple with heat before his mind has caught up with what he's seeing: Eren has turned his head just a little, just enough, so that his bottom lip brushes the heel of Armin's palm. The gesture is startling in both its gentleness and its intent. A harder invitation to decipher. Eren's gaze is beseeching, unforgiving, the halflight making harsh the grey of his eyes. No—there's more there. Longing, maybe. Or, at least, Armin likes to think so, because that's ultimately why he does what he does. 

It's rare for him to commit without planning. To act without understanding. But the darkness hides a multitude of sins. 

 

Armin's face is so impossibly close in that fraction of a second that Eren can see the network of veins beneath the near-translucent skin of his temple. His lips are dry and warm, and their gentle touch has a whole slew of images rush to the forefront of his mind. Armin propped against a wall as he knuckled the tears out his eyes, all irritation turned inwards at the mess of himself. Armin's shirt dark with sweat where the harness straps pulled tight, visible even from fifty feet below, and the gut-wrenching drop as he missed a foothold but caught the next. Armin in his civvies, laid out on the damp grass next to the river as his breath made fog of the night air. Armin. Armin, who made his insides feel cloying and over-full, who came to Eren as innate as breathing. Armin, who's kissing him so softly that it feels out of place in this odd, in-between hour, cold hand to Eren's hot cheek.

Eren has never been very good at refusing what's freely offered to him. In those years spent in the refugee camps, where every meal was a struggle and a place to sleep was worth the fight, he learned that you had to accept kindness no matter the source. Maybe it's easier, coming from Armin. Maybe it's easier with the looming uncertainty of tomorrow. Maybe it's easier with how badly Eren wants it, wants to _take._

Closeness can have so many different names. This one he hadn't noticed before. Eren had been trying not to, because it gnawed at him in a way that was indistinguishable from fear. Now, in this fragile and weary peace, with Armin curled in against him—a shield, an anchor, a grounding force—Eren can feel himself disassembling. The ends of the thread pulled so hard that the seam comes undone. It's not one Eren often allows himself, but giving in has always been its own kind of relief.

 

**v.**

Eren doesn't wake so much as drift into being. The dream, fragments of both the day before and some years ago, slips away as water through his fingers. His thoughts are full of warmth, and some deep sense of satisfaction that he can't place at first.

It's late at night, or early morning maybe. The tent is cast in an even darkness, and he's dimly aware of the nightsounds seeping through the canvas. All his other senses are overwhelmed by Armin: his weight pressing into the crook of Eren's elbow, the subtle in-out of his breathing. The smooth, warm swathe of his bare back pressing against Eren's stomach where his cotton sleep shirt has ridden up. He smells reedy, of river water and crushed grass; beneath that, of sweat and the campfire. Earlier, its shimmering heat had lifted the fine hairs from Armin's forehead as he read maps by its light. 

Eren had wanted to kiss him, but Hanji and Erwin had been there. Talking to Armin, passing the maps between them, taking notes. _We should stop at... There's a good source of water here... Sasha's been teaching Mikasa how to hunt, hasn't she?_

Well, now, Eren _can_. Armin stirs when he presses his lips to the soft crown of his head. He must have sensed Eren's waking, the blinkered awareness of another person in the dark. 

“Eren?” Armin whispers. 

Eren nuzzles the back of his head in answer. “You must've been sleeping lightly.”

A shrug pushes against his chest. “It's been a long time since I've had to sleep in a bed roll... What about you? A nightmare?” Armin says, and in shifting around to search Eren's face, feels the hardness nudging at his tailbone. He tenses and relaxes in the same breath. “Oh,” Armin murmurs. His gaze fixes on Eren’s. “I see.”

There's a little amused tease in his voice. It makes the warmth that's been thrumming in Eren's veins grow fierce. Fiercer still when, slowly and deliberately, Armin rocks back against him. It's early summer, and the closed space of the tent is stifling. Though their blanket is thin—designed for these warmer evenings—it's too much, and Eren kicks it out of the way.

Armin sighs at the exposure to the open air. The nape of his neck is slick with sweat as Eren tucks away the damp curls clinging there, pressing his mouth to it. Armin squirms at the feel of his tongue. Fire burns in Eren's stomach and he grabs Armin's leg to hike it over his own, holding it there as he ruts into the sweet, slippery heat of his thighs. 

“Hah,” Armin huffs, grinding back into him. His foot hooks around Eren's calf to draw him nearer, the space between them narrowed down to nothing. His toes are still, somehow, cold. Eren bites back a laugh. 

His hand slides up Armin's thigh, wandering higher and slipping in against him to find Armin slick still from earlier in the night. Eren had had him then, right here, with Armin complaining at the bedding. _Even those miserable things packed with straw in the camps were better than this_ , he'd said, and rubbed at the small of his back till Eren nudged him on to his stomach and fingered him open like that instead. Everyone's tents were in such close proximity that he'd had to keep his hand to Armin's mouth.

Now, in the deep silent stasis of these small hours, Armin moans freely at his touch.

“Still so wet, huh,” Eren says, panting. He presses in two fingers to the knuckle and Armin takes them easily, a tiny noise catching in his throat. 

The lazy haze of the summer night suffuses everything with its own kind of slowness. Though Eren is eager, he decides to take his time for once. He curls his fingers into Armin's incredible heat, muscle memory making it easy to find the spot that has him seizing, trembling. When Armin twists to kiss him, that too is languid. He flicks his tongue against Eren's, up against the roof of his mouth, chasing the taste of him before drawing away. Even Eren's heart seems to beat slower, a steady _thud-thud_ so different to its typical animal-pace. 

He presses firm at Armin's prostate and feels him shudder, an outward ripple, like disturbed water. A low breath shifting into a moan. Eren bites at his shoulder, taken over by this frantic urge for closeness, the atmosphere shifting, the air thicker.

“I want… I want to fuck you,” Eren says, hopeless, mindless. The arm that's still wedged under Armin's waist reaches blindly, fisting in his shirt and bunching it at his ribs.

“Yes,” Armin hisses. He rocks back against Eren's fingers. His emphatic agreement sends another savage spike of heat through Eren's gut. 

It's an easy slide into Armin's body. Eren has to remind himself to breathe as he sinks in, inch by inch. He tucks his head into the shallow dip of Armin's collar, finding his pulse, the beat skipping as Eren's cock throbbed inside him. There's sweat at the small of his back where Eren's belly rests tight against it. Armin's ribs expand against the brace of his forearm as he gasps and writhes.

“God, Eren,” Armin says, and his nails bite into the flesh of Eren's thigh. The gentle kneading becomes an urge, pulling Eren closer, deeper into the bowed shape of his body. “ _Move._ ”

Even this Eren knows by rote. The profile of Armin's body lying parallel to his, as familiar now as his own. His head turned just enough that Eren can see the slope of his brow bone, the minute tell of his smile by his bunched cheek. One huge oil-bright eye, like the lacquered black of a crow's feather. Eren's so weak to him. He kisses Armin's brow, his cheek, the crease of his eyelid. He lets his hand wanders over the notches of Armin's ribs and down the tight plane of his stomach, spreading against the over-warm skin. His fingertips catch in the soft curls there, and Eren pulls just a little, listening out for the hiss through Armin teeth. A weighted moment before Eren closes his fist tight around the head of Armin's cock. He pumps him in time with his gentle, rocking thrusts. 

“Yeah...” Armin whispers, a barely-there encouragement. His free hand reaches upwards, seeking leverage to fuck himself back on Eren's cock, to buck into the tight circling of his fingers.

Eren bites at his nape, the topmost notch of his spine. Armin tastes like salt and ash and the herbal ointment they'd been issued to repel insects. His rucked shirt is plastered to him now.

“Armin,” Eren says, “that's it... Armin…”

Eren groans hopelessly. He traps Armin's erection against his stomach with the flat of his hand and fucks him slow and deep, riding out the coming waves of his orgasm. He comes so hard it nearly hurts.

He stops, gasping, damp forehead at Armin's nape. It's so warm, nearly unbearably so. Armin pushes his cock up against Eren's palm, whining softly, a noise of impatience that would make Eren laugh if he had any breath left.

“I know,” Eren murmurs into his hair, “I know, baby…”

He strokes Armin's leaking cock, gentle at first and then fast and hard. Toes curl at his shin. The tight squeeze around his spent cock is nigh painful but Eren recognises this closeness, a coiled spring, when Armin sobs and shudders. One, two, three pulls, and Armin's body curls up into itself, spilling into Eren's closed fist. He works his thumb against the slit, two fingers nudging just beneath the head, milking Armin gently till his breathing goes pitchy at the overstimulation. 

The tension steadily unfurls. Eren shifts back, trembling and overwarm. He doesn't make it far before Armin's shaking hands cup the back of his head, fingers winding in his hair to tug him close. The kiss is hungry, desperate. Teeth capture his bottom lip, nip and tug until it feels swollen, and then Armin is sucking his tongue into his mouth, moaning. Eren loves Armin like this, in these rare hours where he allows himself to be no more than what he is.

“God, I… I,” Armin says, his eyes shut, his mouth still nearly on Eren's, “I love you.”

His voice is raw, breathless. Eren's heard him say it so many times, but the words always take him by surprise, like it knocks something loose within him. 

Eren gazes at Armin, gazing at him. Gentle as anything, two fingers brush a lock of hair from Eren’s damp forehead. It should almost be a dream. It could, almost.

"I love you too," Eren says. 

 

There's yelling. The sound of the stiff canvas rippling as one of the tent poles is kicked. Wake-up call. Outside of HQ, it has to be done _the hard way_.

Eren feels raw, open, and warm. He doesn’t want to open his eyes. Instead, he reaches down, blind, to the bare thigh pressed clammily against his own. Smooth, firm. Familiar. He pinches it.

A yelp, then a voice. “What was that for?”

Eren cracks open one eye. Armin's face, his lover's face, shockingly close, flushed and frowning but not angry. His hair and collar askew.

“Just checking,” Eren says, and laughs. This time he deserves the icy fingers against his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> pardon the enormous tonal shift at the end there... i'm a sucker for goofy endings (and considering the manga right now, eren really deserves it). the title comes from the lovely w.b. yeats poem ["he wishes for the cloths of heaven"](http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~hsiao/verse/cloths.html) that i can't help reading eremin in (sorry mr. yeats).


End file.
